The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

As for the second zw|~on of the passage, it has been taken to mean “living
being.” 595 The word is mentioned within a context that connects it directly to the art of
rhetoric as seen in speech and argument and also to that of painting: “it is more fitting to
portray (dhlou~n) any zw|~on by speech and argument than by painting.” 596 The word
dhlou~n suggests a direct link with the notion of “showing;” as such, it implies that zw|~on
was shown or presented to listeners and spectators, therefore, its meaning is fitting as that
of the subject of discussion and representation respectively. Such evidence accords well
with Else’s demonstration of the notion of mimesis as being rooted in the concept of
“mimicry” or the vocal and active imitation of voices and movement, and its application
to material “images” in Plato’s time 597 ; as such, it suggests that zw|~on carries a direct
connection with mimesis here. The meaning of this zw|~on as the subject of
representation, when juxtaposed with the ambivalent meaning of the first zw|~on, which
oscillated between the notions of image and subject, suggests that when used in an artistic
context, the term did not have a fixed meaning, but rather mirrored the tendency to leave
unmarked the distinction between image and subject.
Further evidence for zw|~on in direct association with the arts is found in a section
of the Laws, in which the term refers to the subject of representation in a work of art.
Three persons—Kleinias from Crete, Megalus from Sparta, and an unnamed Athenian—
595 Fowler, Plato. The Statesman 77, and Rowe, Statesman, in Cooper, ed., Plato Complete Works 319,
translate the second zw|~on of this passage as “living being” and “living beings” respectively.
596 For a discussion of the analogy between the words of sophists and the images of painters in ancient
Greece, see J. P. Vernant, “The Birth of Images,” in F. I. Zeitlin, ed., Mortals and Immortals. Collected
Essays (Princeton, 1992) 172-173.
597 Else, “‘Imitation’ in the Fifth Century” 87, where he traces the meaning of mimesis to the concept of
mimicry, more specifically, “the rendering of characteristic look, action, or sound through human means”
and further states that by the time Plato was born, “the concept of mimicry was transferred to material
“images”: pictures, statues, and the like.”
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